Could Texts Reduce Jailings? One Atlanta Suburb Says Yes.

Yahoo

09-04-2025

Nate Mingo knew the havoc that missing a court date wreaked on the lives of residents in his suburban Atlanta community. He understood the prospect of a driver's license suspension or jail detention — and how either consequence could jeopardize one's employment and significantly worsen their legal troubles.
As Riverdale's director of court services, Mingo also realized last year that his office had overlooked a potential safeguard that he hopes will reduce the prevalence of folks failing to appear in court: text message reminders.
'People tend to answer text messages before they open mail or listen to voicemail,' Mingo told Capital B Atlanta. 'I'll try to do anything that makes anything easier. … We just want people to come to court.'
Riverdale began sending text messages in 2020 to alert people when they missed their court dates, but at the start of 2024, Mingo tweaked the process to incorporate reminders ahead of scheduled appearances, too. As a result, the Clayton County city is innovating its approach to criminal justice solutions in a way other Atlanta-area court systems — most of which still solely rely on postal correspondence with defendants — have not.
Following the lead of cities like New York, which has long incorporated digital court reminders to reduce the number of missed court appearances, Riverdale seeks to do the same locally to keep members of its predominantly Black population out of the justice system while saving taxpayers money.
'There is no downside to trying to ensure that people are notified to come to court,' said Mingo, who has been working with Riverdale's court system since 2006. '[Failure to appear] could cost the person to lose their job, to lose their home because they're sitting in jail because they had a warrant that they may have legitimately forgotten about.'
Alissa Fishbane, managing director of Ideas42, a nonprofit consulting firm that has helped employ court reminders in locales across the country, said their research indicates people experiencing hardships are most likely to miss court dates.
'It may be harder for them to arrange logistical things like transport or getting off of work,' Fishbane told Capital B Atlanta. 'On the other hand, because so much is going on in their life that requires their focus on that hardship, it even further exacerbates common tendencies like forgetting about an appointment.'
Atlanta Municipal Court seems to recognize the severity of this issue. The court system recently announced a five-week amnesty program running through April 21 that would allow people who were issued a warrant after failing to appear for a traffic violation to avoid jail time.
'No matter how low the level of a citation you receive, if you miss court, you immediately start this process that can come with pretty severe consequences,' said Wade Askew, policy director of the Georgia Justice Project, a criminal justice advocacy group.
Mingo said that since 2023, Riverdale has been using the communication management system eCourtDate to correspond with people who are due in court. The county consulted with Ideas42 to craft accessible wording in an attempt to make court proceedings feel less daunting.
'We wanted it to read as, 'Hey, we know you missed your court date. We know things happen. Just give us a call and we can reschedule it,'' Mingo said. 'We don't want people to be intimidated.'
Inspired by the deluge of digital appointment reminders he'd receive from healthcare providers, Mingo moved to have Riverdale send these text alerts preemptively at the start of 2024 to jog people's memory about their upcoming day in court. Mingo said people receive a message two weeks before the court date, another at the seven-day mark, and one more three days in advance.
'People are used to receiving [text messages] and they can see them immediately, so they're more often opened and read than other [forms of contact],' Fishbane said.
There are challenges, though. Mingo has found the biggest obstacle is ensuring that phone numbers are up to date, which is partially why Riverdale additionally sends notifications via email and first-class mail.
While Mingo said there is not yet enough data to show that the change has made an impact, findings from New York City reveal that failures-to-appear dropped by 26% after the city launched a text-reminders program in 2017.
Even if the reminders do not match that benchmark of efficacy, Mingo said it's a low-cost execution that costs the city $870 for every 10,000 text messages sent — less than 1 cent per message.
By comparison, each failure-to-appear costs the taxpayer-funded court system about $1,500, according to Ideas42.
'That includes rescheduling hearings, issuing warrants, locating individuals, and possible jail time,' said Fishbane.
Ideas42 adds that the average cost for an individual facing a failure-to-appear is around $1,400, including loss of income and additional fines.
'The benefit that we get kind of outweighs some of the costs,' Mingo said regarding Riverdale's text reminder program.
Other Georgia cities have looked to text messaging as a solution to potentially reduce missed court dates.
Athens-Clarke County's municipal court began sending text messages to notify people of upcoming court dates in 2020, while the municipal court in Montezuma — a rural Macon County town about two hours south of Atlanta — implemented their own program two years later.
Mingo said a Clayton County official reached out to him recently to learn more about Riverdale's program.
DeAndre Moore, chief clerk of Atlanta Municipal Court, told Capital B Atlanta via email that the court system is 'exploring the potential' of electronic court reminders after tallying 17,555 cases last year in which a defendant failed to appear.
At Fulton County Jail, 2,342 people who failed to appear in court last year were incarcerated at the troubled facility, which was the subject of a Department of Justice report released last year that exposed conditions that violate detainees' civil and human rights. The vast majority of those detainees are Black.
The Fulton County clerk of superior and magistrate courts declined to comment on whether the county would consider implementing a text reminder system.
Fulton County courts and the Atlanta Municipal Court all have case management systems with the capability to send electronic reminders, according to Tyler Technologies and Catalis Court and Land Records, the companies that oversee the software of both systems, respectively.
Mingo believes implementing a court date text reminder program is a no-brainer.
'When the technology exists and you're not doing it then the question becomes, well, why aren't you doing it?' he said. 'Are you trying to make people miss court?'
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